Encouraging Beginning Drawers

[Gordon’s art]

here are the two comparisons of my drawings about 10 years apart

[Schuee (from Wiltshire, England)]

So much improvement. Elvis is awesome! Very well done.

Penny
I live in Wiltshire, England
“If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.” -Will Rogers

[Retiree]

For years I’ve said that drawing is a skill and that talent has little to do with it. As a skill, it is something anyone can learn to do and learn to do well. All that is required is the desire to learn and the diligence to practice. Everyone starts at the same place … Rembrandt, DaVinci or any other artist you can think of. Nobody was born with the skill to draw – they had to learn that through practice.

As we are getting more and more new drawers here I thought it would be a good idea for those of us with some experience to post comparative drawings from our first tries and then something later after we had built some skills. The idea being to show anyone interested that just a bit of practice and dedication will bear good fruit.

I started to draw in 2005 with almost no background but I had the desire to learn and I practiced for about a year. Here is the result of that. I know I am best known for drawing cats, but I started out wanting to learn to do human portraits so that is where my early work was aimed. This is my first try at a portrait and one I did about 1 year later after joining WC.

[IMG]http://s3.amazonaws.com/wetcanvas-hdc/Community/images/04-Jan-2017/61266-03162015-1.jpg[/IMG]

I invite anyone with similar comparisons to post their work here as an encouragement to any new drawers who might be feeling as if they cannot draw the way they want. Just keep trying!!!

Were you self-taught or did you take any drawing courses/classes including the one offered here at wetcanvas? Thank you so much for sharing including the time span, that is a reality check in a very good way.

[Retiree]

I fortunately don’t have a record of my very first attempts at drawing:lol:
It took me ages to learn drawing until I found out the layering technique using different graphite grades. The zebra was drawn in 2013 and the elephants in 2016
[IMG]http://s3.amazonaws.com/wetcanvas-hdc/Community/images/05-Jan-2017/1256189-21042013135s.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://s3.amazonaws.com/wetcanvas-hdc/Community/images/05-Jan-2017/1256189-A3_howies_graphites.jpg[/IMG]

Thank you for sharing! I think the biggest benefit of this thread for me is that an excellent drawing takes time, lots and lots of time. Funny enough, I did not realize that! I feel if I draw, I should draw an excellent drawing in a few hours! Yet in my painting in acrylics, I have a totally different expectation – that my paintings may take weeks or months to do.

[Retiree]

This thread is awesome… It really shows how you improve over time
My first trials were on December 2015 when I got a pencil set for Christmas and decided to learn how to draw for me to improve my painting. [URL=https://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1395411]Here the thread with my first attempts.[/URL]
[URL=https://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1426078]Here my most Recent one[/URL]. (1 year 5 months after)

Thank you so much to you and all the other artists that have shown your drawing progress on this thread. Again it is the time span that is so essential to show us beginning drawers. It takes a lot of time to make one excellent drawing. It makes me realize how silly I was thinking what’s wrong with me – I should be able to master this one drawing in a couple of hours. Wrong! And as I mentioned in a previous post – yet I am fine with realizing when I am painting in acrylics, it can take me weeks or months to complete a painting.

[Gordon’s art]

the drawings I do now take different time to finish, depending on size and detail of the drawing the Elvis drawing (new one) I have posted above took me between 40-50 hours, but I have finished another drawing this week that has taken me about 9 hours

[talisman]

Here are a few of mine.
The Elk was actually the first drawing I did in 2005 when I started in art.
Poor as it was it ended up getting me commission work for house renderings, about 50 of those plus some pet portraits. The lady was from that time also.
The Dog and Jack Sparrow are current drawings.

Dianna WC! Guide: Fantasy/Sci-Fi Art
C and C always welcome.
My DeviantArt Gallery

[Overlord_Kirby]

I love these kinds if threads. Here are some of my examples:

This is probably the best example I have for showing progress over time. The one on the left is from 2009, and I spent less than a day on it. The one on the right is from April 2011, and I spent at least a couple days on it. In less than 2 years, I made major improvements.

I finished this drawing a little over a year ago. I probably spent around 5 hours on it over the course of 2 years. I mostly draw with colored pencils now, but I haven’t had the urge to draw much in the past few years.

Facebook Art Page

[Jsmay]

I can only draw for a couple hours a day, after work and on weekend, at most.

J. Smay
https://www.instagram.com/jsmayart/

[SparowHawk7 Moderator Drawing and Sketching]

I can only draw for a couple hours a day, after work and on weekend, at most.

That was my experience for the most part – except for me it was only on weekends although I had larger blocks of time those two days. What counts is that you stick with it. Skills take time to learn but we all can do it with dedication and practice! And nobody is fighting the clock with it … it happens but because we’re all individuals the amount of time varies individually.

Ken

http://www.heritageartstudios.com/

[Infine]

As I told in the welcome thread I’ve just recently found my «inner artist». I’m kind of surprised what I’ve achieved so far.

My first drawing was a sketch of my grandson from a photo where he did not smile (he is always smiling so that was a rare moment) I enjoyed the half hour I spent doing this, and I really felt good when his eyes turned up underneaht my hand. A comment from a pro artist on facebook motivated me, and made me think «come on, you can do better».

I went on line finding a lot of helpful tips. I’ve learned a lot, adaptet a few and went on developing. Maybe the most important, for me, is the use of time! Do not rush! And the outlines, there are no outlines in nature (even thoug I got that in my golf sketch) But, like the pro artist told me; when you’re in a plane, and you know you’re crossing the border of Sweden, you don’t see the line, do you?»

Per today I’ ve done a couple of portraits, I’ve done a golf theme and Sunday I started doing a dog. Thats when I found you, in my search of drawing fur. I’m so excited. So much to learn, so many wonderfull, skilled and generous people sharing ideas, tips and knowledge.

I’m so happy to have found you.

So, even if I’m totally new to fine art, I do want to share my development with you.

My grand son, done March 26. (Paper and pencil very low quality)

My son (schoolproject, acting in a «fake» Tag Heuer commercial) done April 17. Bought better pencils, good paper but it’s maby not so good for graphite.

And at last (for now) the golf theme, done June 6. Blue Stadler Mars lumograph from 4h, 2h, hb and for the darkest parts I used a Pilot 0,3

Now I’ll go back to finish my dog. Looking forward to see a lot more of you all in WC.

Peace to all:heart:

«Art has to move you and design does not, unless it’s a good design for a bus. (David Hockney)

[SparowHawk7 Moderator Drawing and Sketching]

Hello Infine. You have made remarkable progress in just a few drawings. Not everyone will progress as quickly.

Remember folks, don’t get to comparing your work to anybody else because we are all unique. If you must compare – and doing that is human nature – compare your current drawing to the one you recently finished. Anything else won’t be fair to you.

Ken

http://www.heritageartstudios.com/

[Infine]

Hello [B]Infine[/B]. You have made remarkable progress in just a few drawings. Not everyone will progress as quickly.

Remember folks, don’t get to comparing your work to anybody else because we are all unique. If you must compare – and doing that is human nature – compare your current drawing to the one you recently finished. Anything else won’t be fair to you.

I do agree so much. I was teaching secondary highschool and said the same to my students. «Don’t compare to nobody else but your self.»
I don’t think that you believe that comparing with others was my goal by posting this progress. But, I also see that my progress is kind of spesial, so I feel for giving an explanation.

Nowadays (unfortunately) I have all the time in the word to do drawing caused to a spinal injury. So sad for that, but so happy that I found my inner artist in this bad situation. I have a huge amount to learn and I’m looking forward to do so. Because of my condotion I do almost nothing else but learning to draw. It’s not a wishfull situation at all, but going in to my «bubble» to draw makes my life better. But really, I would give my arm to use mounths or years to acheve this progress if I could turn back time, before the accident.

PS
I love your cats, they look so soft and silky, and of course I wonder how you do that Maybe I will try something like that one day.

«Art has to move you and design does not, unless it’s a good design for a bus. (David Hockney)

[Infine]

Of course it would be my left arm …;)

«Art has to move you and design does not, unless it’s a good design for a bus. (David Hockney)

[SparowHawk7 Moderator Drawing and Sketching]

I made this post about my methods for doing hair/fur. Somewhat advanced but I don’t think it will be a problem for you.
https://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showpost.php?p=20672706

Ken

http://www.heritageartstudios.com/

[Author]

Posts